


Lullaby

by mortalitasi



Series: ad lucem [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good thing about being one half of a couple that never sleeps soundly is the understanding. The nightmares are terrifying, but waking up next to him makes them almost worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> if you're saying "this is totally self-indulgent angst fluff!!" then all i gotta say is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ YOU'RE RIGHT. i love them so much haha he l p

It’s not difficult to wake Fenris – because he hardly ever sleeps. 

You could call it a bad habit, he supposes, and he indulges in many of them, but this is probably the one that is most involuntary. He can be tired, bone -weary, exhausted, ready to pass out, but sleep will not come. Which is where, usually, the wine helps. More often than not, however, he will stay awake well into a new day, watch the sun rise over Kirkwall, and perhaps collapse into whichever moth-eaten bed in the mansion appeals most to him… or into Hawke’s. 

He will admit, this alternative smells better, and it doesn’t move at night. At least, not too much, if the mabari hasn’t found his way onto the bed first. Which he does, very often, and Fenris has had to get used to listening Dane snore lightly under his breath while he chases imaginary rabbits in the land of dreams. He wonders if dogs visit the Fade. 

A most arresting train of thought, but he’s startled out of it when Hawke turns over on her side to face him, expression tight with pain, sweat glistening on the turn of her brow. He’s about to reach over and wake her up when her eyes open wide, fearful, bright in the gloom. Her shirt slips over her shoulder when she sits up, sheets bunching up around her bare legs. 

“Fenris?”

She sounds – frightened. Unusual, for her, but the night changes many things about many people.

“I’m here,” he says, knowing she cannot see in the dark like him. He follows the movement of her hands as the tension in her shoulders drains away. “Are you alright?” 

She scrubs at her face with one tired hand. “Bad dreams,” she answers in a murmur, as though he couldn’t have guessed. “Did I wake you?” 

“No,” he responds, gesturing to his crossed legs. “It won’t be dawn for another few hours.” 

Aisling sighs and presses her forehead to the back of her knees. “Don’t look at me. I’m…”

He has a few ideas about how she could finish that sentence: weak, pitiful, pathetic,  _a failure_. He doesn’t let her, and reaches out to brush the hair sticking to her cheek away with a careful swipe of his fingers. 

She’s never been good at letting others see her in times of need, and this is a compulsion he knows well. Perhaps that’s why she ever started confiding in him, what seems so long ago. Aisling shuts her eyes at his touch. The peace he instills in her has always fascinated him. It is… gratifying, to know you can do that for another. He didn’t think he’d ever care for it.

“I will be here,” he tells her, and the way she looks at him makes him feel – something. It’s too massive and important to put a word to, even after almost nine years. He almost has to turn his gaze away.

“Hey,” she says as she nudges her cheek to his hand. “I, as well… I’m with you.  _Always_.” 

She’s not one for proclamations of affection – neither of them are, not really, and he has to wonder what it was she saw in her dreams to inspire her to such sentimentality. He does like hearing it, of course, who wouldn’t? But he knows, and he always has, that she would stay, that she would wait, that he – could count on her. It’s just the way it is. There are stars in the sky and leviathans in the sea, and Hawke is loyal.  _It’s just the way it is_. So, in keeping with the spirit of the last fifteen minutes, he decides to say it, too. 

“I know,” Fenris replies. He pauses, a little doubtful, and then leans over to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Always.”


End file.
